A/N
I hope everyone is enjoying the story. I would like to apologize for any mistakes. as I am yet to find a beta.
Please review to let me know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. Thanks:)
###
It was a slow and difficult process, but Bruce cut back on the heroin until he had managed to wean himself off completely. He couldn't afford to be fucked up when people were depending on his help. He still wanted it. Without it he was starting to feel that anger again, lying somewhere in the back of his consciousness. Meditation just wasn't the same, but he found that while he was helping people, he hated himself a little less. He was a little less disappointed that he wasn't dead. Every now and then, when a family he had helped hugged him and told him they would be forever grateful and opened up their home to him, he felt something close to happiness.
Then came the Avengers.
During that time, when Black Widow hauled him off to stop a God from taking over the world, Bruce felt things he hadn't felt in a long time. He felt the joy of a kindred spirit in Tony Stark. He felt a sense of belonging in the warmth of Steve Rogers. Even the Black Widow herself seemed too show him kindness. Yes, it wasn't all sunshine and lollipops. He had felt anger and he had felt fear, but all of that was negated by something he never thought he would feel to the day he died. He felt for the first time like the other guy may just have a place in the world. Bruce had helped to save the world, but the other guy had helped too. Bruce didn't hate himself so much by the time they had defeated Loki and his army.
Tony had made the offer for Bruce to stay in Stark Tower with him and work in R&D. He had actually invited all of the avengers to stay, offering each their own floor. Steve had accepted the offer, his animosity toward Tony replaced by an indefinable bond. Steve was eager to leave his isolation and the loneliness that came with being a man out of his own time in favor of some sort of companionship. Everyone else declined. Bruce would have liked to stay, but he couldn't feel safe in one place anymore, even with Tony's assurances that his security system was the best in the world. Bruce went back to his life of helping those most desperate, comforted by the knowledge that if he ever desired, there was a home waiting for him.
As the months passed on, Bruce's desire to take Tony up on his offer grew stronger. He found he thought about it often, usually with a smile upon his face. When he heard the news of Tony Stark's battle against Aldrich Killian, it pushed him over the edge. Bruce realized he was afraid. Even knowing that his friend was safe, hearing how close he came to harm still sent a jolt of fear through Bruce, who had carefully slowed his breathing and calmed his wildly beating heart. He had friends whom he missed. He had a home waiting for him. He had to go to New York.
When Bruce showed up at Stark tower, he was welcomed by JARVIS. The AI recognized his face and opened the doors, directing Dr Banner to the elevator and to the lab in which Tony was tinkering with some unknown gadget. It took several seconds before the billionaire sensed a presence in the room and lifted his eyes from his project. They widened with surprise. Apparently JARVIS had neglected to mention Bruce was coming up.
"Brucey boy, good to see you!" Tony exclaimed, surprise turned to enthusiasm.
"Good to see you too Tony. I'm glad to see you haven't gotten yourself killed in my absence."
"Thank Pepper for that. I'm pretty sure without her I would just stay in my lab working until I collapsed in a puddle of my bodily fluids and died of thirst. Anyway, how you been?" Tony inquired, still tinkering with his experiment.
"Offer still open on staying here?"
Tony responded by yelling at dummy to take Bruce's single measly bag to his designated room.
With that, Bruce was officially a resident of Stark tower. He was given his own lab which he excitedly put to use. It had been so long since he had been able to research whatever he wanted, using the most high-tech equipment available. When he was in there he felt like a twelve-year-old who had been given his very own toy store. He came to the realization that his optimistic self, the part of him he thought dead and gone, was actually alive and thriving. It seemed he was finally getting something like the life he had dreamed for himself. Part of him still mourned the departure of Betty from his life, but he had accepted that as a necessary loss some time ago. He almost thought himself past his anger. His rational mind knew that it was still bubbling away somewhere beneath the surface.
It took a few weeks for the scientist to get familiar with all the tech and equipment in his lab. During this time he also enjoyed the company of his team. His friends. There hadn't been an Avengers level threat since Loki, so each was busy with their own life. However everybody came by the tower often enough. Everybody seemed pleased to see Bruce. Even Natasha, in a slightly reluctant way. Of course, Steve lived in the building, but he spent much of his time in his custom-built gym. He worked for the army from time to time, agreeing to help with training some of the special ops soldiers, but this was not an everyday job. Tony of course continued to work on his suit and on creating more efficient fuel sources. Thor did whatever gods do, and Natasha and Clint where always very vague about what they do when they're not at Stark tower.
Once Bruce had acquainted himself with his lab, it came time to start a serious project. He was trying to decide on what exactly he should research first when he felt a nagging pull and the edges of his mind. His optimistic self was whispering a promise of hope in his ear; what if you can fix yourself? You have the gear, you have the time, you have the safety; Bruce couldn't resist the pull.
Ever since the accident he had been on the run. It was no wonder he hadn't been able to find a cure. Now though, he had everything he needed. He became absorbed in his work. That old yet familiar feeling of obsession was creeping its way to the surface. Nobody thought twice of course. Dr Banner was a scientist after all and Tony was just the same. It hardly seemed amiss when he forgot to eat or sleep because his work occupied every space in his mind. Tony would come into his lab now and then and offer any help he could.
When Tony first became aware that Bruce was trying to find a way to 'fix' himself, it annoyed him to say the least. He may have ranted for a while about how the big guy saved his life and how Bruce was being a moron. Bruce may have quietly ignored him while his anger and frustration built up ever so slowly. After that first time though, Tony, in a very unTony-like way, resigned himself to the fact that Bruce would do what he wanted. If that was the price he paid to keep his one intellectual equal around, then fine. After that they actually started to have fun when they worked together, making the occasional small breakthrough or doing highly experimental side projects. Mostly though, when Tony wasn't there, Bruce was just frustrated at his lack of progress. He felt his hope slowly beginning to fade again.
After several months, Bruce was nowhere. The scientist could feel the self loathing begin to rise up again. He could feel the pain. The anger at the fact that he may never find an answer. His cravings for the best form of relief he knew had come and gone a few times throughout the years, but ever since beginning his research at Stark tower, the cravings had come back with a vengeance. At this point, he wasn't sure why he was fighting it. He was on edge, ready to snap at any point. He couldn't let that happen and risk hurting his friends and breaking yet another part of New York. He already had a good supply of needles and syringes thanks to Tony's copious amounts of any and everything remotely sciencey that was stored in the tower. On the streets of NYC, how hard would it be to find a dealer?
Bruce decided he needed to go for a walk.
He had caught a cab to one of the seedier parts of the city, known for high rates of drug trafficking. He had walked along the streets for a short while, knowing just what to look for, before coming to a corner where a young, scraggy looking man stood against a wall, keen eyes scanning the area for potential customers, finally landing on Bruce. He simply nodded, inviting Bruce to approach. The exchange was quick and easy, the dealer walking away a bit richer and Dr Banner walking away a bit closer to peace.
Not an hour later, Bruce sat in a corner in his lab. He was planning to stop by the lab to grab the needles and head to his room, but once there he found he couldn't wait. Bruce rolled up his sleeve, beginning the comfortingly familiar ritual. He tied a piece of rubber tubing around his bicep as a tourniquet, watching the veins on his left arm pop out. He noted the old scars from the last time. Very briefly he forgot the euphoria and remembered the sickness. The pain that came with trying to quit. The inability to function, stealing and sleeping in the streets just so he could remain detached from reality. Then he found a vein on his forearm, remembering how worth it would be if he could just feel the feeling he knew was coming next. He inserted the needle and slowly depressed the plunger. The anger, the hurt, it all dissipated.
For the next few months, Bruce sunk slowly deeper into his heroin haze. At first he limited himself to times when he was particularly stressed, but it wasn't long before it was a daily undertaking. When he was high, he could do his research, not caring if he got nowhere. He could tolerate even the knowledge that he may never find a cure. When he was high he floated above such problems. He was getting thinner, which Steve noticed and queried, with the good doctor explaining that he just gets caught up in his research and forgets to eat sometimes. Bruce wasn't so thin as to be unhealthy, so the captain left it alone. Tony noticed Bruce's odd mood swings. When he was coming down from a high, reality came rushing back to him. With that came the ever intensifying self loathing at his uselessness. In those moments, his depression shone through enough for Tony to know all was not right. Tony was even more concerned by the detached cheer he often encountered on his journeys into Banner's lab. The others too had noted something was strange, but it was hard to place the problem when they didn't see Bruce all the time. Bruce though was thankful for his relative solitude. And luckily for him, Stark Industries paid high enough wages to their R&D employee that he could afford to be fucked up most of the time.
Bruce had become more careless as he lost himself further in his self destruction. He and Tony often worked on projects together, which Bruce genuinely enjoyed, but it was hindering his ability to shoot up. He would say he was going to the bathroom and come back completely out of it. He was fortunate to have a brain powerful enough he could compensate, but he knew that his friend must have noticed his change in demeanor. Sometimes, more often than not now, when Bruce was working alone on his search for a way to reverse the effects of the gamma radiation, he would just shoot up in his lab. It was reckless. Anybody could walk in. It was still better than waiting.
He would sit on the floor with his back against a cupboard and go through the blissful, sickening ritual and ride out the high until he was coherent enough to continue working. Sometimes he didn't even remember to take the needle out until he stood up.
This was how Tony Stark found his friend, his science bro, Dr Bruce Banner, when he walked into the genius' lab to see if he wanted to go eat something; slumped on the floor, barely conscious, with a needle sticking out of his arm.
